Bill Simmons mocked for refuting his own ad read

Over the years, Bill Simmons has often used his podcast to comment on ads. That makes some sense; his podcast has always gone well beyond sports, also covering TV, movies, and more. But it’s unusual to see a podcaster make negative on-air comments about the sponsor they just read an ad for:

On today’s BS Pod Bill Simmons advertises for Burger King, saying specifically he loves the song from the commercial.

Minutes later, Bill trashes the Burger King song!

Reminder that The Ringer was sold for $200 Million https://t.co/HWsRQv6lHC

— The r/BillSimmons Podcast 🎙️ (@rBillSimmonsPod) April 29, 2024

The ad read there in the first clip has Simmons go “This episode is brought to you by Burger King, which has the greatest commercial song I think I’ve ever heard. The ultimate hunger hack has arrived, my friends.” The second clip, from the podcast proper, has Simmons singing the song and saying “I can’t hear it any more.” (It can be found around the one-hour, 16-minute mark in The Ringer’s embedded version of the podcast, as part of Simmons’ “Top Three Commercials That Are Officially Driving Me Crazy After Nine Straight Days of the NBA Playoffs,” placing second behind only a WingStop ad with its own song that bugs him.)

In fairness, the segment is more Simmons complaining about seeing and hearing these ads over and over again than specifically bashing the individual ads. But it still seems quite inconsistent for him to specifically cite the “greatest commercial song I think I’ve ever heard” in an ad read, then put it in a list of commercials driving him crazy and say “I can’t hear it any more” during the body of the podcast.

And while some cases of contradictory ads and content can be explained by those coming from different sources unaware of each other (for example, digital ads placed algorithmically may be odd next to certain stories or content, but the writers of that content don’t usually know what ads will wind up beside them), this being Simmons’ own ad read defeats that explanation here. This also would be at least a bit less weird if he’d complained about the Burger King song in the same episode as an ad read focusing on Burger King taste, or value, or anything else.

But Simmons’ decision to specifically praise the song as “the greatest commercial song I think I’ve ever heard,” only to then say shortly afterwards “I can’t hear it any more,” certainly appears quite at odds. As the r/BillSimmons Podcast Twitter/X account noted, though, this is far from the first odd thing that’s come up with his ad reads.

How can Bill be so bad at ad reads? Reminds me of when he advertises for Airbnb and then trashes it during Hilton ads https://t.co/wQBsuRfT0e

— The r/BillSimmons Podcast 🎙️ (@rBillSimmonsPod) April 29, 2024

This did generate some extra discussion for Burger King’s ads. So from that standpoint, it’s not all bad. But they do seem to be getting far more positive ad read value from Kevin Harlan than Bill Simmons.

[@Bowe2Point0 and @rBillSimmonsPod on Twitter/X]